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Power Brokers IV, Pacific Northwest: The Most Tribes, But Few Legislators

Brian Daffron, ICTMN

The “Power Brokers” series travels to the Northwest and West Coast, whose traditional tribal lands house some of the most ethnically diverse cultures in the United States. Yet, among the states along the West Coast and Northwest, there is little representation in state government. Indian Country Today Media Network contacted the administrative offices—as well as legislative assistants—for the states of Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington State, Idaho and Nevada. Among these states, only two—Alaska and Washington—have Native people within its legislative body – an interesting statistic given California is home to the second largest federally recognized tribes within a state at 103, and Nevada is home to more than 20.

Alaska

According to the Environmental Protection Agency website, there are 229 federally recognized tribes, villages and Native village corporations within the state of Alaska. From the 229 tribal governments, the 2012 U.S. Census shows that the American Indian and Alaskan Native percentage is 14.8 percent. The halls of Alaska’s state legislature have six Native members overall—two in the Senate and four in the House.

Senator Lyman Hoffman (D)

Tribal Afflilation: Yupik

Senate District: S

Years in Office: 1991-1992 and 1995-Present

Previous Legislative Experience: Alaska House of Representatives, 1986-1990 and 1993-1994

Committees: Community and Regional Affairs; Fish & Game Subcommittee; Transportation & Public Facilities—Finance Subcommittee; Legislative Centennial Commission; Finance; Governor-Finance Subcommittee; World Trade; Alternate, Legislative Council; Commerce, Community & Economic Development–Finance Subcommittee; Legislature—Finance Subcommittee; Alaska Arctic Policy Commission

Key Legislation: Co-Sponsor, Energy Assistance Program; revision of state brand board

Senator Donny Olson (D)

Tribal Affiliation: Inupiaq (Golovin)

Senate District: T

Years in Office: 2001-Present

Committees: Part of a Republican/Democrat Coalition—One of two Democrats invited within coalition; Finance; Judiciary; State Affairs

Key Legislation: Creation of Native Language Preservation Council; controlled substances classification; legislation concerning U.S. Coast Guard operations in the Arctic; request for U.S. government to open oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; establishment of Alaska Mining Day; reduction of salmon catch by trawl fishers

Representative Bryce Edgmon (D)

Tribal Affiliation: Choggiung Village Corporation

House District: 36

Years in Office: 2006-Present

Additional Experience: President, Choggiung Village Corporation

Committees: Chair, Subcommittee on Corrections; Chair, Subcommittee on Public Safety; Finance; Subcommittee on Health and Social Services; Alternate, Alaska Arctic Policy Commission

Key Legislation: Change of the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” in Alaska statutes; act relating to performance reviews, audits and termination of Alaska executive and legislative branches, the University of Alaska and the Alaska Court System; request to the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management to plug legacy well drilling sites; reinstatement of child and adult immunization programs in the state Department of Health and Social Services; renewable energy grant fund; loan for commercial fishing entry permits; act making regional Native housing authorities eligible for grants from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; law requiring the Department of Natural Resources to deliver a fishing stream access report to the legislature and governor’s office; Village Safe Water Act

Representative Neal Foster (D)

Tribal Affiliation: Sitnasuak Native Corporation

House District: 39

Previous Experience: Vice-President, Sitnasuak Native Corporation

Years in Office: 2009-Present

Committees: Co-Chair, Military & Veterans Affairs; Community & Regional Affairs; Public Safety-Finance Subcommittee; Judiciary; Transportation & Public Finance Subcommittee; Natural Resources-Finance Subcommittee; Energy

Key Legislation: Legacy well sites; creation of a state food resource development group; opposition to Food & Drug Administration’s findings on genetically-engineered salmon; act relating to performance reviews, audits and termination of Alaska executive and legislative branches, the University of Alaska and the Alaska Court System; revolving bank loan fund; request for United States Congress to adequately fund United States Coast Guard Arctic missions; act making regional Native housing authorities eligible for grants from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; law requiring the Department of Natural Resources to deliver a fishing stream access report to the legislature and governor’s office; relocation of the Coastal Villages Region Fund home port; Village Safe Water Act

Representative Charisse Millett (R)

Tribal Affiliation: Inupiaq

House District: 24

Years in Office: 2009-Present

Committees: Co-Chair, Energy; Select Committee on Legislative Ethics; State Affairs; Labor & Workforce Development-Finance Subcommittee; Judiciary; Administration-Finance Subcommittee; Labor & Commerce; Commerce, Community & Economic Development—Finance Subcommittee; Task Force on Sustainable Education

Key Legislation: Vulnerable adult prompt response and notification; Alaska Challenge Youth Academy; police standards; creation of a state food resource development group; commercial use authorization for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; legacy well sites; Change of the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” in Alaska statutes; proclamation of Alaska as a Purple Heart State; opposition to Food & Drug Administration’s findings on genetically-engineered salmon; laws concerning sale and possession of switchblades and gravity knives; encouragement of firearm and firearm accessory manufacture; Alaska Minerals Commission membership; establishment of the Alaska Gasoline Development Corporation; self-defense definitions; establishment of Vietnam Veterans Day; Statewide Suicide Prevention Council; no charge for death certificates of deceased veterans; establishment of Alaska National Guard Day; renewable energy grant fund; authorization of Native housing authorities to receive grants through Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; requirement of Department of Natural Resources to submit report on fishing stream access; urging of U.S. Congress to open coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration; opposition to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to create new protected habitat within upper Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay; prevention, evaluation and liability for concussions in student athletes

Representative Benjamin Nageak (D)

Tribal Affiliation: Inupiaq

House District: 40

Years in Office: 2013

Committees: Co-Chair, Community & Regional Affairs; Education & Early Development—Finance Subcommittee; Health & Social Services; University of Alaska—Finance Subcommittee; Court System—Finance Subcommittee; Energy

Key Legislation: Law regarding abandoned and derelict vessels; legacy well capping; changing of statute language regarding phrases “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded”; opposition to FDA findings on genetically-engineered salmon; establishment of the Alaska Gasoline Development Corporation; allocation of funds to the Special Education Service Agency

Washington

Washington State—the home of Chief Seattle and Sherman Alexie—has 30 federally recognized tribes within its borders, making up 1.8 percent of the state’s total population. Out of 97 members of the Washington House of Representatives, two are Native.

Representative John McCoy (D)

Tribal Affiliation: Tulalip

House District: 38, Position 1

Years in Office: 2003-Present

Committees: Chair, Community Development Housing & Tribal Affairs; Vice-Chair, Environment; Education

Recent Key Legislation: Initiative to increase STEM education; authorization of state-tribal compact schools; protection of state’s cultural resources; Yakima River Basin resource management; access of tribal members to state land; music education initiatives; academic credit for military training; visitation rights for grandparents; Small Rechargeable Battery Stewardship Act; modification Native child care costs; hunting regulations for tribal members; recognition of Native American Heritage Day; regulation of sibling visitation for foster children; excuses of work and school absences for reasons of faith or conscience; increasing capacity of school districts to respond to troubled youth; limiting liability for habitat projects; job order contracting procedure for Department of Transportation; insurance coverage of eosinophilia gastrointestinal associated disorders; initiatives in high school to save lives for cardiac arrests; housing trust fund investments; tribal conservation easements; prohibiting liquor self-checkout machines; high school equivalency certificates; powers and duties of gambling commission; contribution limits to school board candidates; law requiring state to retrocede civil jurisdiction over Indians and Indian territory, reservations, county and lands; creation of state Indian Child Welfare Act; enhancement of Pacific Salmon production; creation of Washington Investment Trust; decommissioning of coal-fired power generators; establishing state-tribal relations; enactment of Middle Class Jobs Act; creation of Clean Energy Partnership; air quality protection; regulation of aviation biofuels production; clarification of rights and obligations of domestic partners in regards to parentage; creation of Indian Education division within office of Superintendent of Public Instruction; bullying prevention; oil spill program requirements; traumatic brain surgery strategic partnership.

Representative Jeff Morris (D)

Tribal Affiliation: Tsimshian

House District: 40, Position 2

Years in Office: 1996-Present

Committees: Chair, Technology & Economic Development; Environment; Transportation

Previous Experience: Speaker Pro Tempore and Floor Leader, Washington House of Representatives

Recent Key Legislation: Joint Center for Aerospace Technology Innovation; business and government streamlining projects; early learning opportunities; wireless communication structures; restriction of crab fishery licenses; extending business and occupation tax credits for research and development; assessment of energy storage systems; using marijuana-related revenue to fund agricultural production research; modification of renewable energy cost recovery program; authorization of small consumer installment loans; stewardship of household mercury-containing lights; scrap metal licensing; renewable energy options for electricity company customers; grandparents’ visitation rights; increase of regulatory oversight for the Office of Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises; renewable energy jobs; elimination of traffic safety cameras; reduction of littering by retail carryout bags; firearm safety funding; tribes and conservation easements; establishment of energy efficiency improvement loan fund; child abuse investigation and proceedings statutes; decommissioning of coal-fired power generators; establishments of energy efficiency standards for consumer products; establishing government-to-government relationship between state and tribes; privatizing management of state ferry system; limits on fertilizer containing phosphorus; defining of municipal solid waste as a renewable resource; procedure of retrocession of civil and criminal jurisdiction over federally recognized tribes; implementation of Blue Alert System; Higher Education Opportunity Act; restriction of television viewers in motor vehicles; expanding rights of domestic partners in regards to parentage; embalmer regulations; improvement of fishing opportunities in Puget Sound and Lake Washington; creation of Indian Education division within office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; epa.gov; Washington Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs; Open States; and Project Vote Smart

Help this Navajo Photo Win the America’s Family Album Contest

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

The Ford Motor Company Fund’s America’s Family Album (AFA) contest has reached the final four — and one entry was taken at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. The AFA is a compilation of user-submitted photos taken at the Smithsonian, everything from vintage black-and-whites to snaps taken in 2013. Each submission earns the museum a $5 donation from the Ford Motor Company Fund, up to a maximum of $50,000.

One of the final four photos, “Representing the Navajo Nation” by Lauri T., comes from the National Museum of the American Indian. Online voting runs to August 28 — visit AmericasFamilyAlbum.org to cast your vote and show your support.

Coal port faces huge obstacle in Lummi opposition

The totem pole Jewell James is carving to protest coal exports. Photo: Paul K. Anderson, Chuckanut Conservancy.

Cultural concerns and treaty rights to protect fish loom large for a shipping terminal near Bellingham.

Floyd McKay, CrossCut

Lummi Master Carver Jewell James at work. Photo: Paul K. Anderson, Chuckanut Conservancy.

Lummi master carver Jewell James is taking another ceremonial totem pole on a long trip, but this time it won’t be going as a healing pole — like those he carved for the three 9-11 sites — this pole is a political and cultural statement aimed at the export of coal from ports in the Pacific Northwest.

The pole is taking shape only a few miles from the proposed site of the largest coal terminal in the region, at Cherry Point north of Bellingham on Georgia Strait.

It’s a site that James and other Lummis regard as sacred; their ancestors lived, fished and died at Cherry Point through the centuries before white men discovered the area, imposed treaties on the natives and pushed them onto reservations.

The reservations are still there, as are the natives, and pressure continues to bring industry with its economic development, jobs, shipping, railroads, pollution, threats to native fishing areas and trampling of ancient grounds. Over the last two centuries, Cherry Point has seen two oil refineries, an aluminum plant and now plans for yet another giant industry.

Now, the Lummis appear to be well-positioned to play a key, perhaps the most critical role, in determining the fate of a huge proposal to export coal to China from Cherry Point. If the tribe’s objections to the port hold and their treaty rights under federal law withstand any legal questions, the path to approval of the port planned by SSA Marine of Seattle faces a giant obstacle. Company officials, for their part, say they believe the plan can win support from the tribe.

SSA Marine wants to export 48 million tons annually of Powder River Basin coal, and this time the Lummis are deeply dug in. Their line was first drawn a year ago when Lummi elders burned a ceremonial million-dollar check on the beach at Cherry Point and declared no compromise or financial offer would change their opposition to the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT).

Lummi speakers were forceful at seven public meetings last year hosted by public agencies charged with reviewing the proposal. Tribal leaders have hosted public events in Whatcom County, where the fate of two key permits will be decided. They even wrote a play, “But What About Those Promises?” to dramatize exploitation of their ancestors.

Up next is the totem pole, which begins its journey about Sept. 19 at the Powder River Basin coalfield in Wyoming and follows by truck the long and winding rail route to Cherry Point. Ceremonies and rallies along the way will reach Seattle and Cherry Point about Sept. 27 to 29.

The Lummis, with regional tribal support, are mounting a two-pronged attack on GPT: the cultural side, headed by James and associates in the Lummi Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office; and a resource side, relying on key federal court decisions protecting “Usual and Accustomed” fishing rights granted in treaties dating to 1855.

Lummi Nation then-Chair Cliff Cultee (left) and Hereditary Chair Bill James with the check they will burn at Cherry Point. Photo: Floyd McKay

Lummis are quick to say the two items are inseparable because salmon is integral to every aspect of their — and all Salish tribes’ — life. Scholars support that claim and note that Salish tribes have never deviated from their relationship with salmon.

“Prior to and following the arrival of Euro‐Americans, the shorelines of Cherry Point were used as fishing villages and the tidelands and waters of Georgia Strait were used to harvest fin‐ and shellfish for commercial, subsistence, and ceremonial purposes,” Lummi chairman Tim Ballew II said in a 24-page letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in January. “Although the Lummi Nation still fishes the waters of Georgia Strait, the resources have been degraded by human activities and shoreline development has precluded the use of traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering sites along the shorelines.”

The Corps has jurisdiction over wetlands and piers and it must deal directly with the 5,000-member tribe in a “government to government” manner honoring tribal sovereignty.

7 adorable animals imperiled by the Keystone XL pipeline

Tim McDonnell, Grist

In its deliberations over the Keystone XL pipeline, the State Department is taking flak not just from picket-sign-wielding environmentalists, but also from within the ranks of the Obama administration. This spring the EPA slammed an environmental review as “insufficient” and called for major revisions. And Monday, ThinkProgress uncovered a letter [PDF] from the Interior Department, dated from April, that outlines the many and varied ways in which the pipeline could wreak havoc on plants and animals (not to mention dinosaurs) along its proposed route.

The letter calls particular attention to a line in the State Department’s most recent environmental impact assessment [PDF] that claims “the majority of the potential effects to wildlife resources are indirect, short term or negligible, limited in geographic extent, and associated with the construction phase of the proposed Project only.”

“This statement is inaccurate and should be revised,” states the letter, which is signed by Interior’s Director of Environmental Policy and Compliance, Willie Taylor. “Given that the project includes not only constructing a pipeline but also related infrastructure … impacts to wildlife are not just related to project construction. Impacts to wildlife from this infrastructure will occur throughout the life of the project.”

Which wildlife? The letter raises concerns that potential oil spills, drained water supplies, and bustling construction workers could cause a general disturbance, but identifies the critters below, some of which are endangered, for special attention:

The Ross’ goose depends on Nebraska’s Rainwater Basin, which the pipeline would pass through, as a key migratory stopover. A spill in the basin could “severely impact critical habitat,” the letter says.

Black-footed ferret. — Wikimedia Commons

Although the letter praises State Department plans to protect these endangered ferrets, it nonetheless raises concerns about the potential for infectious diseases from domestic pets at construction camps and worksites in Montana and South Dakota to spread to this population of 1,000 or less left in the wild.

Like the Ross’ goose, the Sandhill crane depends on Nebraska’s Rainwater Basin, which, according to the letter, could be severely impacted by an oil spill.

Least tern and chick. — Wikimedia Commons

Already endangered, least terns depend for nesting on a plot of protected federal land just 40 miles downstream from where the pipeline will cross Nebraska’s Niobrara River. Nests could fail, the letter warns, if construction activities cause fluctuations in the river’s water level.

Also endangered, the piping plover depends on the same nesting site as the least tern and faces the same threats.

In 2010 the Fish & Wildlife Service found the tiny Sprague’s pipit qualified for endangered status, but hasn’t yet been able to officially list it because of higher-priority species. But the pipit breeds in Montana’s North Valley Grassland, which the pipeline would pass through, raising concerns about impact from a spill.

While not exactly the cutest on this list, pallid sturgeons are also endangered; the letter raises concern that as water is withdrawn from the Platte River during the construction process, the fish and their eggs could suffocate. An assertion by the State Department that no plan is needed to mitigate damage to sturgeons, the letter says, “seems unsupported and requires further documentation.”

This story was produced as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Tim McDonnell is a Climate Desk associate producer. Read more of his stories here or follow him on Twitter.

Nez Perce Tribe’s Resistance to Keystone XL Pipeline is Nothing New

Renée Holt, Native News Network, Guest Commentary

As I enjoy the last day of summer break, before I return back to school, I have been thinking about the recent media publicity my tribal community has received regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.

As an enrolled member of the Nez Perce Tribe, and a mother to three beautiful children, a couple weeks ago, our community, the Nimiipuu (aka the Real People) stood in solidarity with our First Nations brothers and sisters in Canada who oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our community has been protesting the Megaloads for well over two years.

Although regional media has highlighted the Nez Perce tribal council arrests and members of our community for their Indigenous activism, what media has failed to see is that our community has been protesting the Megaloads for well over two years. It just happens to be that we held our first town hall meeting in March 2011 and Winona La Duke shared information on the negative effects of the Keystone XL and the importance of a protest.

In collaboration with the grassroots organizations Friends of the Clearwater and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (who have worked tirelessly on this environmental issue) our tribal council made an informed decision with the intention of making it known the Nimiipuu oppose the Keystone XL pipeline and the transportation of the Megaloads through our ancestral homelands.

From the ancestral homelands of the Nimiipuu people, located in North Central Idaho, I am writing this to members of society, both Indigenous AND non Indigenous, to do more than question and challenge this global climate issue, but to also help fight the battle against the Keystone XL pipeline.

It has been shown in studies from the Environmental Protection Agency and grassroots organizations such as the Rainforest Action Network that gas emissions were toxic and communities located near these sites have higher rates of cancer and contamination of water resources. Not only do the Indigenous communities that are located near these sites suffer, but so do the plants and wild life. If there is one common thread we share as citizens of the global community, it is this, water is necessary to live. Once water is poisoned, we’re all poisoned.

We need to educate and inform citizens and look respectively at Indigenous governments who are protecting their homelands.

Whether in the United States or Canada, Indigenous lands and surrounding areas are continually being devastated by oil pipelines. The lives of people, wildlife and plants suffer and the Megaloads protest ought to remind us, as human beings, the value and sacredness of life is a responsibility. Whether Indigenous or non Indigenous, as humans, to oppose and protest the Keystone XL Megaloads being transported through ancestral homelands is rooted in a responsibility to community and Mother Earth. At this time, due to frustrations with the US Forest Service, the Nimiipuu community and grassroots efforts have filed a lawsuit.

If they are not stopped, the Keystone XL pipeline devastation will continue and the health and well being of those who live near these environmental hazardous areas, regardless of racial ethnicity, will be negatively affected. As an Indigenous woman, I am writing this to share with non Indigenous readers a little bit of who we are as people. Because we often make our homes where our ancestors made their homes, we also live on reserves/reservations that were at one time unwanted land. Today, the unwanted land is now sought by big oil corporations where environmental hazards have disrupted and devastated the ecosystem.

I also believe it is important to mention that the Keystone XL pipeline is an international issue. The responsibility is that of Secretary of State John Kerry to oversee international issues as appointed by President Obama.

Native American Chiefs Honored, Revered on New Website

New NativeAmericanChiefs.org features essays, photos of legendary Native American chiefs.

Source: PRWeb

Native American chiefs are supremely honored, and hold the highest position within individual Native American tribes. Before generals and politicians ruled the land, the United States was filled with indigenous Native American tribes, and was host to many small societies existing beneath chiefdom.

In Native American culture, an elder was considered to be the wisest. Elders were thought to deliver just decisions, and often rose to the rank of chief. Native American chiefs have accomplished many important feats for Native Americans, and have been recorded within American history.

Now, a new website dedicated to legendary Native American chiefs has been launched.

“Many Native American chiefs have been regarded as great warriors, and have spearheaded campaigns to protect their people from danger at overwhelming odds,” said NativeAmericanChiefs.org spokesperson James Heldon. “Chiefs have led entire civilizations, expelled enemy occupants and have led tribes into profitable lands, filled with hunting grounds and fertile soil.”

The Native American leader, Geronimo, was an Apache warrior who fought the United States and Mexico to protect his people’s land. His father-in-law, Chief Cochise, was considered a fearsome warrior, and spent much of his life at war with Mexican forces to protect his tribe’s culture.

The Navajo chief, Manuelito, evaded capture by American forces in the 1800s, and additionally led his people into battle against overwhelming odds against the American Army. He took part in several battles, and participated in the Long Walk, where the United States forced the Navajo tribe to walk—at gunpoint—from their Arizona reservation to eastern New Mexico.

The Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, is arguably the most famous Native American leader. He’s considered a figure of deep conviction, cunning and bravery, and led his people to a decisive victory against opposing forces during the Battle of Little Bighorn. The Sioux, themselves, were fierce combatants, and entered battle with traditional war shirts, decorated with human scalps and ceremonial beads. Camouflage wasn’t used, as war garments were worn to inspire fear within the enemy. A chief normally stuck out, and was decorated with elaborate clothing and jewelry.

“The many stories of Native American chiefs are passed down through history, and tribes keep them alive—even today,” said Heldon. “Their tales of bravery and heroism are inspiring legends, and will likely exist for centuries. Chiefs have historically led their tribes through struggles, famine and war, and continue to lead modern tribes through hardships.”

To learn more information about Indian chiefs, as well as their accomplishments, take a look at NativeAmericanChiefs.org. Visitors will encounter stories of battles, and access biographical information pertaining to Native American leaders.

Fix the Census’ Archaic Racial Categories

By Kenneth Prewitt, NY Times

STARTING in 1790, and every 10 years since, the census has sorted the American population into distinct racial groups. Remarkably, a discredited relic of 18th-century science, the “five races of mankind,” lives on in the 21st century. Today, the census calls these five races white; black; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.

The nation’s founders put a hierarchical racial classification to political use: its premise of white supremacy justified, among other things, enslaving Africans, violent removal of Native Americans from their land, the colonization of Caribbean and Pacific islands, Jim Crow subjugation and the importation of cheap labor from China and Mexico.

Of course, officially sanctioned discrimination was finally outlawed by civil rights legislation in 1964. The underlying demographic categories, however, were kept. Securing civil rights required statistics. Thus resulted an uneasy marriage of preposterous 18th-century racial classifications to legitimate 20th-century policy goals like fair electoral representation, anti-discrimination programs, school desegregation, bilingual education and affirmative action.

But the demographic revolution since the immigration overhaul of 1965 has pushed the outdated (and politically constructed) notion of race to the breaking point. In June the Supreme Court struck down a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, taking note of changing demographics. I disagree with the court’s ruling, but agree that society is changing. And our statistics must reflect those changes.

Fast-growing population groups — mixed-race Americans, those with “hyphenated” identities, immigrants and their children, anyone under 30 — increasingly complain that the choices offered by the census are too limited, even ludicrous. Particularly tortured is the Census Bureau’s designation, since 1970, of “Hispanic” as an ethnicity or origin, thereby compelling Hispanics to also choose a “race.” In 2010, Hispanics were offered the option to select more than one race, but 37 percent opted for “some other race” — a telling indicator that the term itself is the problem.

Indeed, anyone who filled in “some other race” that year was allocated to one or more of the five main groupings. Many absurdities have resulted.

America has about 1.5 million immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa — some 3 percent of the nation’s black population. Like President Obama’s father, who was Kenyan, their experience differs vastly from that of African-Americans whose ancestors were enslaved, yet they are subsumed into the same category — one that, until this very year, continued to include the outdated term “Negro.”

The census considers Arabs white, along with non-Arabs like Turks and Kurds because they have origins in the Middle East or North Africa. Migrants from the former Soviet nations in Central Asia are lumped in as white along with descendants of New England pilgrims.

An indigenous person from Peru, Bolivia or Guatemala is Hispanic, but if she “maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment,” she might also be counted as part of a racial group that includes the Inupiat and Yupik peoples of Alaska.

Are Australian immigrants whites or Pacific Islanders? (The Census Bureau’s own documents are unclear on this.)

The census has no second-generation question, leaving Congress to debate immigration reform with inadequate statistics about which new Americans are learning English, finishing school, living in segregated neighborhoods or staying out of jail. Social scientists closely track intermarriage as an indicator of assimilation, but the census reports intermarriage only among whites, blacks, Hispanics and others — overlooking unions between, say, Japanese and Chinese, Cubans and Mexicans, Nigerians and native-born blacks. These marriages may have as much to tell us about where the nation is headed as the rate at which whites intermarry.

Much attention has been paid to the news that non-Hispanic whites now account for less than half of births in the United States and that deaths now exceed births among non-Hispanic whites. These projections are oversimplified and misleading because they rely on the outdated “five races” concept. The far more significant turning point is the shift from a nation of a few large racial blocs into a hybrid America of numerous nationalities, ethnicities and cultures, unprecedented in human history. It is this hybrid, multivalent, dynamic America that is not reflected in the census. We cannot, however, fix this at the expense of abandoning racial categories, which are still needed for legitimate policy purposes.

The Census Bureau has begun to consider what changes it will recommend for the 2020 census. It will focus, appropriately, on operational improvements, like increasing response rates. But there are also political decisions to be made.

I URGE three actions. First, drop the current race questions, which misleadingly conflate race and nationality, and ask two new questions: one based on a streamlined version of today’s ethnic and racial categories, and a separate, comprehensive nationality question. (The 2010 census asked Hispanics, Asians and Pacific Islanders to specify a national origin and allowed American Indians and Alaska Natives to put down their tribe.)

These two questions would allow for much-needed flexibility. Broad racial groupings are significant for protecting voting rights, but information on national origin is more useful for understanding health disparities in a metropolis, or for diversifying a university’s student body. Indeed, the failure to appreciate rising inequality within the country’s white majority and to distinguish, say, inner-city blacks from African asylum-seekers, or Southeast Asian refugees from well-educated East Asians, have contributed to the criticisms of affirmative action as too blunt a tool of social policy.

Second, add parental place of birth to the census. One-fourth of Americans under the age of 18 are children of immigrants — a proportion that will increase sharply over the next quarter-century.

Third, slowly phase in the use of the data to make policy. There is a precedent: in 2000, there was strong opposition to the new option of selecting more than one race. It was feared that this would reduce the size of various racial minorities. The government responded by counting those who are white and of one minority race as minorities for the purposes of civil-rights monitoring and enforcement. The new comprehensive statistics on national origin would be put to use judiciously. The five races would not disappear from the statistical system, but neither would they be the only policy tool available.

Americans may hope for a colorblind future, but we know that the legacy of discrimination continues to haunt us; that some new immigrants are assimilated even as others are left behind; that new versions of racism crop up, within as well as among the five “races.”

Faced with these empirical realities, statistical ignorance is a moral failure. It is also a political failure to ignore the arrival of a hybrid America. Even the questions on race we use in 2020 will be wrong for 2100. It will take decades of gradual re-engineering to match census statistics to demographic realities. The Census Bureau is prepared; what’s missing is public awareness and political leadership.

Kenneth Prewitt, the director of the United States Census Bureau from 1998 to 2000, is a professor of public affairs at Columbia University and the author of “What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Effort to Classify Americans.”

What Protection Of Traditional Knowledge Means To Indigenous Peoples

By Catherine Saez, Intercontinental Cry

World Intellectual Property Organization member states in July concluded the biennium work of the committee tasked with finding agreement on international legal tools to prevent misappropriation and misuse of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.

Indigenous peoples and local communities are holders of a substantial part of this knowledge and are demanding that it be protected against misappropriation but also against its use without their consent.

Intellectual Property Watch conducted two interviews with different indigenous groups attending the 15-24 July WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) (IPW, WIPO, 25 July 2013).

The IGC is working on the protection of genetic resources (GR), traditional knowledge (TK), and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs or folklore) against misappropriation mainly by commercial interests. Other concerns include knowledge that has been claimed for collection purposes, or research, or has been used for a long time and is considered part of the public domain.

Indigenous peoples’ groups have said that the public domain was basically created at the same time as the concept of intellectual property and their particular knowledge had been put in that public domain, by default, without their consent.

Preston Hardison, policy analyst representing the Tulalip Tribes, Jim Walker of the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (Australia), and Ronald Barnes of the Indian Council of South America answered questions about the protection of traditional knowledge, on the issue of the public domain, and what would be an optimum result of the IGC.

“I work for a tribe of 4,600 people, on a very small 6 mile square reservation. They’ve lost 90 percent of their land. They are surrounded by a sea of non-indigenous peoples. Their habitat has been fragmented. When they reserved their treaties they reserved a lot of ‘off reservation rights’,” said Hardison.

“They have this small reservation but they get to hunt and gather fish all around because they knew the reservation was going to be too small to sustain them,” he said. “But now all these lands are getting fragmented, polluted, broken up, rolled over by cities and urbanization, [and] climate change is causing species to move away from their territories, invasive species are coming in.”

The whole IGC discussion started with the problem of biopiracy, he said, and how to protect knowledge from being patented. “However the problem in the IP system, is that the best way to protect against patents is through the public domain because that is prior art.”

“What we very quickly found out is that this defensive approach was not helping us because the patent problem is really just a problem of temporary monopoly and the solution was for us to permanently lose control of our knowledge by putting it in the public domain.”

There are also issues when the knowledge is a pathway to discover the natural resources, “so people discover the value of cultural heritage through the traditional knowledge but the resource itself may not be protected,” Hardison said. “By solving the patent problem, by making your knowledge available, you may have opened yourself up to petty exploitation, to non-monopolistic exploitation.”

“The main problem is not the monopoly [inherent in a patent],” he said. “It is people finding out what the value of our medicinal plants is and coming and taking every single one they can find.”

Ronald Barnes, of the Indian Council of South America told Intellectual Property Watch: “When we talk about protection we want protection against exploitation so that the protection remains in the control of the holders of TK and the owners so that their right to self-determination is recognized and respected.”

People wanting to use the knowledge “have to register and let us know how they acquired it and how they are using it. Perhaps if it is sacred we don’t want it to be developed,” he specified. “Sometimes we try to keep it close to ourselves but it leaks out. There is always a way to go to one person and compensate that one person and then they say we have acquired this from you and now we have the right to develop it but it is still our collective property.”

Colonizers Put Traditional Knowledge in the Public Domain

There are some stewardship obligations that go with the knowledge, Hardison said. “When you receive it you don’t receive it freely to do whatever you want with it, you have obligations to the land, to whatever it is referring, to the spirits or the ancestors. This is a real problem with the public domain. Tribes have often shared their knowledge in the past but they shared it with people who had similar views and concepts and understood these obligations. But now we are in this world with 7 billion people on the internet.”

“If we decide to exchange knowledge, the problem is that the public domain exhausts all of our rights. It destroys the stewardship obligations that go with the knowledge,” he said.

Some of the indigenous peoples’ knowledge has been in the public domain for a long time, he explained, and allowed to be accessed for all these years, “but we never agreed to that,” he insisted. “We are not looking for monetary compensation but looking get the recognition of our right to control access.”

“We’ve held our traditional knowledge for thousands of years. It is ours,” said Barnes. “Then comes another peoples and we are colonised, why should we be held to a limitation to the knowledge control and the right to protect it?”

Optimum Outcome of the IGC, Carveout from Public Domain

One outcome of the IGC would be the identification of certain kinds of TK associated with GR, TK and TCEs that could be protected in perpetuity, some carved out of the public domain, said Hardison. “We don’t think all can, and we are open to discussion on what is protectable and what is not.”

“We are interested in creation and creativity too and some tribes and indigenous peoples would like to engage in this and some won’t, that is their business,” said Hardison. “For those who engage in it we don’t want the price of that to be the public domain, and that’s how it works.”

In the world system today, “there are very few examples of intangible cultural heritage laws which treat our knowledge in this holistic way,” Hardison said, adding, “what we have is IP law.”

“Our problem is if we ever exchange knowledge with an outsider in any way, the second we exchange it, it falls within the IP regime. We’ve never had a chance to negotiate that. We are not considered in the Berne convention [Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works], or any other WIPO conventions,” he noted.

“We know all cannot be protected but we want a regime to respect our rights where it can, and have that discussion about what can be protected and what can’t. We never put it in the public domain. That was the colonizers who put it in there for us.”

Common Thread, but Common Positions Hard to Achieve

“We might have different views on how we might get there, to achieve certain outcomes,” said Walker.”Circumstances might be different in different countries.”

“Some issues are easier than others,” said Hardison, Part of the problem is financial support, he said. Indigenous groups “are only funded for the minimum amount of time,” he said. “For example, we get three hours on Sunday before the meeting to meet together. That is not a lot of time to start working out common positions, especially on the kind of things that we have now.”

“It has gotten better now that we have translation, generally, coordinated by DoCip (Indigenous Peoples’ Center for Documentation, Research and Information),” he said. “But it is still hard to talk cross-culturally.”

“You need to have the resources back at home,” said Walker. “Getting prepared for those meetings is very difficult because generally you have your other obligations to your organization or to the people back home. Often you don’t have the time or the resources to get around and start consulting everyone to get a unified view or to get other opinions or inputs,” Walker said.

Barnes said that getting a common view was a tough exercise. “Whether or not we like it, we have some indigenous peoples who are paid more, given more funds and they are more willing to cooperate, whereas some of us refuse those funds and they want to retain their property.”

This Interview originally appeared at

www.ip-watch.org

One in 20 Teens Use Cancer Causing Smokeless Tobacco

Source: Native News Network

WASHINGTON – It is bad for teens to take up smoking because of ill effects it has on health, but young people should be taught smokeless tobacco is not good for them either.

Smokeless tobacco is a form of tobacco that is not burned. Smokeless tobacco, known as snuff, chewing tobacco, oral tobacco, spit or spitting tobacco, causes cancer and other diseases. Smokeless tobacco is known to cause oral cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer.

A recent study indicates one in 20 middle school or high school students use smokeless tobacco products. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health saw that in national survey data.

The scientists also saw the power of peer pressure.

“Adolescents who had a friend that used smokeless tobacco were 10 times more likely to use smokeless tobacco themselves,”

commented Researcher Constantine Vardavas.

For comparison, teens with a family member who used smokeless tobacco were only 3 times more likely to use it.

Nearly all of the smokeless users reported it’s easy to get the stuff.

Unfortunately, smokeless tobacco is addictive because it contains nicotine. Studies reveal users of smokeless tobacco and those who smoke cigarettes have comparable levels of nicotine in the blood. In users of smokeless tobacco, nicotine is absorbed through the mouth tissues directly into the blood, where it goes to the brain. Even after the tobacco is removed from the mouth, nicotine continues to be absorbed into the bloodstream. Also, the nicotine stays in the blood longer for users of smokeless tobacco than for smokers

Smokeless tobacco is not a safe substitute for cigarettes.

National Congress of American Indians Joins National Action to Realize the Dream March

Source: Native News Network

WASHINGTON – Fifty years after the March on Washington where the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered one of the most dynamic speeches of the last century on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, thousands are expected to be in Washington on Saturday, August 24, for the National Action to Realize the Dream March & Rally.

In an act of solidarity, the National Congress of American Indians has partnered with the National Action Network, and numerous other national conveners, to help organize and assist in planning for this historic march and rally.

The March commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

The March will take place from 8:00 am until 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 24, and will focus on Jobs, Justice, Voting Rights and Freedom. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, the Supreme Court’s decision impacting the Voting Rights Act (Shelby County v. Holder ), and the Baby Veronica adoption case – where the statutory requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act were wrongfully evaded – it is more important than ever for our collective voices to unite for justice and dignity for all people.

The National Congress of American Indians calls on friends and allies nationally to participate, and for those in the Washington DC area to volunteer for the March; bring their families and friends in a show of support; and to help spread the word. The National Action Network is requesting volunteers for the following areas:

Marshalls
Cleanup
Medical (licensed nurses to assist with health needs)
Volunteers are asked to contact the volunteer office at 800.311.7020 or by email at MLK50volunteers@gmail.com

Also, while the March will occur on Saturday, events are taking place beginning August 21 through August 28. Click here for the most up to date list of events throughout this week of mobilization.